The antidote to ideologies

Emergency measures at The Slog: a personal message for readers & followers

Hello there. Over the last month, impersonations of me and others in the comment threads here have gone from being vaguely iritating and/or amusing to the regular sowing of confusion.

It is I’m afraid the way these bacilli work: it would be OK if it was just sad little plonkers pulling their wires up in the attic during the early hours, but the number of IDs, IP addresses (and a sudden uplift in attempted malign site attacks) has convinced me that this is a largely professional operation.

I think it is totally unrelated to the Waspi issue, because tracing the locations suggests no link at all. As usual, however, it does seem to be correlated with recent Slogposts about illiberal laws, the undermining of Brexit, obvious approaching econo-fiscal crises and actions involving Syria or Turkey. So in the short term, this is what will happen:

For the time being, I will respond when necessary to genuine comment threads by adding to that content under the threadname. I stress that no content by the threader will be changed.

I will check all incoming threads against the email ID supplied. Anything suspicious will be trashed and spammed out.

If ANY detached comment using my name comes through, until further notice IT IS NOT ME so please ignore it.

After some tracing processes have been applied by the ISPs I’ve contacted, the impersonations should dwindle and at some point disappear. When that has happened, I will provide further updates.

The inconvenience we all suffer should be minimal. For ‘them’, being traced and banned would be a nightmare.

@salfordlad
John
She was soon on her bike when a note was shoved under her nose……..
it was a list of her and others bolt holes world wide: It indicated the opposition to her aims had a supply of the latest Russian sniper rifles plus users!

‘To tell the truth in time of tyranny is a revolutionary act’. quote by George Orwell.
You obviously are doing something right John,and bringing the devious machinations of TPTB into the glare of the light. There are so many ill informed and docile citizenry,who have, and never will, wake up to the corruption and fraud that makes their everyday existence pure hell.
Take the intrusion of Trolls as a compliment to the effectiveness of your blog and supporters. Our opinions may differ at times , but on the main points we agree..

Personally I reckon the trolls are a compliment JW, the MSM all sewn up so to speak by the elites that they found it necessary to inflitrate the Alt-MSM on the grounds people are leaving the MSM in droves because they only tell a pack of lies.

You might find your articles even mentioning the name Clinton “in any form” results in an attack because the Americans cannot allow their portrayal of Clinton as Mother Teresa to be smashed to reveal one of the 4 riders of the apolcalypse. So from now on we only use the Mother Teresa word for Clinton right? … That’s good but then by Facebook trending manipulations you go to the top of the Mother Teresa search. Comical that … it revealed a new way into the heart of the MSM.

So disguise your articles and content in a subliminal way to be something else, then it is pulled into the MSM reaching into the very minds of the brainwashed sheeple. The path is 2 ways, not just the MSM illusion, but the reality and reality will always win out. This happened on Facebook the other day and they apologised to the sheep for them viewing the disturbing information.

The concept of free speech in the US is gone as the need to conceal hideous amounts of corruption is now setting the agenda.

Inversely, my own personal web site / server all the attempted hacking has stopped! The trolls are too pre-ocuppied on other tasks = trolling Alt-MSM sites. Even the spam e-emails have reduced to a trickle so reckon many of them were attempted NSA / GCHQ sanctioned information gathering.

Washington Escalates Punishent Of Truth-Tellers
Former British Ambassador Craig Murray, a truth-teller, has been banned from entering the United States of America.
Washington is so afraid of truth that the most honorable man in Great Britain cannot be allowed into the USA.

The concept of free speech in the US is gone.
How do you determine this?
Listen to a member of the US MSM give a breakdown of current events, both at home and then abroad.
It soon becomes clear that North Americans are enclosed behind a reality curtain, that shields them from the nonsense the US perpetrates around the globe.
(C)linton blaming Putin for cyber attacks gets laughed away domestically, as so it should, as pathetic distraction tactics.
But then the same MSM will have you know that Ukraine was invaded, is still occupied and Crimea was annexed by the greatest existential threat today. No coup, burning, nazis. Trump is supposed to be more hawkish than (C)linton – what?

Several parallel worlds, including my own internal world picture are operating simultaneously.
The organised online activities are designed to prevent false perspectives from being revealed or gaining too much traction.
They are definitely keeping tabs.
Ever bothered to wonder whether that it might be just you, me and maybe a few other “safe individuals” here, while we occupy our time bitching amongst each other?

Blog posts and threads are easily divided and contained into manageable packets that only you could see.
It is worth asking whether in fact the concept of free speech on the internet has already left the building.

AH well Mr Ward. If you really start annoying them you will have them following you around in cars, doing it very badly so you know they are doing it. You will have them tapping your telephone and cutting the line when you deliberately say something provocative (my favourites were about the Mossad, MI5 and the Iraq war back in the day). As you live in a detached rural property, not a block of modern flats, you probably won’t have anyone living on site with advanced psyops electronic gadgetry detecting your typing to a computer you disconnected from the internet for 18 months due to hackers.

One of the great wonders of being hacked like that is that you can write absolutely dreadful things about your opponents, knowing full well that they will learn every single word you have written without being able to say that they have, as that would mean they were disgraceful snoopers and self-righteous politicians like Blair, Campbell et al were never like that, were they?

One day I wrote an Arsenal football song about Rebekah Wade which went down a storm with the hackers like Piers Morgan. It was at the time her then husband was suing her for divorce and it came out that she was, in fact, a husband beater.

The full song was:
‘The wanky Rupert Murdoch chose Rebekah for the Sun!
Ditto
Ditto
And this is what we say: ‘F**K OFF!!!!
Who’s that slag that beats her husband?
Who’s that c**t that backs the Jock?
We’re the Mirror boys tonight
So we knows she f**kin sh*te
So why did the judge not make her suck his c*ck?

All of which can be interpreted in a myriad ways:
1. Was she screwing and/or fellating Andy Coulson at the time, a well known Spurs supporter (whose crest is the Cockerel)?
2. Should the sentence handed down to her in court have been a compulsory giving of oral sex to her previously beaten husband?
Etc etc etc.

All of this is terribly embarrassing to disgusting industrial-scale hackers, isn’t it?

Quite how it wended its way to the Chairman of Middlesbrough FC is also one of those vagaries of the British State….I was highly amused about that, even though Arsenal decided to play like Jessies and lose 2-1 at the Riverside that very weekend….

The impostors are pretty obvious, but irritating nonetheless; checking email ID, though laborious, should sort them out, I guess.

—————————
This IS the real Hieronismusb, one of the funniest and most value-adding threaders here, but by no means the only one. If this is where riding old machinery gets you, we should all be doing it.
JW

Always enjoy your blog JW, but when I read some of the “contributions” from kn*bheads who seem to infest your pages I am reminded of two things – (i) The Ungodly are sufficiently disturbed by your efforts to consider it worthwhile trying to spoil your work, and (ii) those contributions are so laughably inept – if irritating – that if this is the best they can do then they ought to retire to whichever darkened room it is they infest and return to the sins of their childhood. If they ever left them behind, of course …

The number of impersonators who trolled me three and four years ago were certainly not professional – albeit that they were screwed up.

In your case it would be more a matter of them sticking up a finger to you; in mine, it’s more likely that they got a nice little stiffie for their pains.

Hence they didn’t need paying, but they did – and still do – need controlling. And that from someone who believes in free speech… but that does not go so far as to allow flagrant sexual abuse ( à Freud) or power (Adler).

John
Yes, I got a little confused occasionally, as to whether it was the ‘real’ John Ward commenting, or some “ignorant f**ckwit” impersonating you.

Don’t blow a gasket for me mentioning an IT possibility – I know how you love IT ;o) – but have you ever thought of running your own dedicated webserver, over which you have full control? Installing WP takes couple of mins., then a template, a few images you like, set up your categories and off you go. No WP moderation from above, unless you carry it out yourself, your loyal supports can have accounts to login to, before commenting, and you can easily block out anyone you don’t like – full control.

Just a thought. If that prospect appeals (somehow I doubt it!), I don’t think anyone else has mentioned the possibility here. Drop me a line if it does.

After Gemma’s moderation issues, it’ll be interesting to see if this gets through!

@ PeterC – Wrt the demise of free speech in America, do you think it’s any better in Britain? Or come to that, anywhere else on the planet? Given that my British friends still swallow everything that’s peddled by the BBC as gospel and that here in the States, one can access dozens of divergent/oppositional views, I wonder why you might think free speech is more available in Britain? …… One of the arguable advantages here is the diversity from state to state; there’s not really a homogenous collectivity (until it comes to the flag!) but freedom of speech is one of the most cherished ideals for which I see far more Americans prepared to fight than Brits.

It’s very good to know that you have them rattled. These pernicious attacks on intelligent and thoughtful discussion is despicable and malevolent, I fear it is the tip of a much larger media ‘putsch’ . Nevertheless it underestimates the sound good sense and discernment of those of us who visit your blog each day. Keep posting Mr Ward, I might not always agree with you but I like to read the argument, always thought provoking and well observed.

@rtz1211 that is brilliant. When I was a student we had a landlady whom we became convinced was reading our opened private mails while we were out (letters from girl friends etc, pre internet of course). So one day I left her a message in one of those letters. I am afraid my language was appalling and abusive. When we returned that evening the atmosphere was icy and without any comment or prompting from us she protested that she never read our private mail – she obviously did but could not complain about my message without admitting it. Sounds like what you did but with more serious snoopers. Keep up the good work.

John if you are drawing fire from paid and unpaid trolls you are fighting the good fight.

John, I read your blog every day but rarely comment. I do enjoy it and appreciate the insights you make us all aware of, and also the humour; if ‘they’ are giving you trouble then ‘they’ must be getting scared.